Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

You'd be surprised how far they go to really minimize "time spent on the job". We had to get special language put in our contract requiring our employer to make us eligible for FMLA because by their definition of "time at work", we did not meet the 1,250 hours that would otherwise require them to offer it.

My first 12 months as an airline pilot I grossed $22,000. Whether that is above or below minimum wage depends if you define my pay time as "flight time", "duty time", or "time away from base". It is for some of those and it isn't for others.

Airline pilots *ARE* hourly workers. If you know so much about how my contract is negotiated you should have taken a moment to actually read it.

I'll give you the comparison on time on job related duties though, we don't spend 40 hours at work a week. We tend to spend 48-60 hours "on duty" a week being paid a maximum of around 30 hours (pay time and duty time tends to be a 1:2 ratio) and may only be home 2 nights a week sometimes.

I don't need to negotiate by the hour pay, I already have it. I just don't get paid for all of the hours I am actually working.

My citation is the contract governing how I am paid. Pay time begins when all exterior doors are closed and the parking brake is released. Pay time ends when the first exterior door is opened (our contract says the it should only be the main cabin door, but in reality the clock stops as soon as the rampers pop the bag door).

And yes, pay is by the hour. The excuse of the airlines pushing for these pay rules is that our hourly rate is high enough that it covers all of that stuff too. They'd be happy to switch to pay by the duty day if we in turn halved our hourly rates. Just to put it in perspective, On a busy day I may be on duty 12-16 hours and only paid for 6-8 hours. The shortest possible duty day is a single flight day which will have a minimum of 1:00 of time I am "on duty" but not being paid, and that does not include getting through TSA which I am supposed to do before my duty day starts.

As an airline pilot I do not get paid while I wait in line and am checked by the TSA. I do not get paid while I wait in line for customs. I do not get paid while I get the flight paperwork and verify it is safe and legal. I do not get paid while preparing and inspecting the airplane for flight. I do not get paid while I wait for everyone to get on the plane and coordinate with gate, ramp, fuel, maintenance and catering to ensure an on-time departure.

The glideslope is not a "automatic landing system". In any case, if its not working you look out the window assisted by an array of white and red lights next to the runway to fly the glidepath visually.

While your statement is true it missed the point. If I am looking through a telescope at an object that is 1,000,000 light years away, yes, that object is 9.4605284e21 m away from me. What you are missing though is that light I am seeing in the telescope was emitted from the planet 1,000,000 years ago. I am not seeing the object as it is today, I am seeing it as it was 1 million years ago.